Art Pick: Smart Phone

“Any healthy man can go without food for two days—but not without poetry,” wrote Baudelaire. Now, thanks to MOMA, a poem is just a phone call away. In conjunction with the exhibition “Ecstatic Alphabets/Heaps of Language” (on view through August 27th), the museum has installed John Giorno’s Dial-a-Poem, first conceived in 1969, which lets people access recordings of poets reading their own work—from Allen Ginsberg to Patti Smith—by calling the local New York number 347-POET001. (Dial-a-Poem is free, but your mobile phone fees will apply.) Better yet, visit the show and pick up one of the four black phones installed for that purpose. Out-of-towners averse to long-distance fees can visit the Web site.

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